CHASING MARWA

11-SHOCKER

OMNISCIENT

"Mami, I'll get going then," Zafeer let out a strained but genuine smile.

He arrived over an hour ago and Marwa had not returned yet. Zafeer cleared his busy schedule for the day just to meet with Marwa, even his appointment with the investors. He stayed back and had a chat with Nafisa and Marwa's younger sister, Hidayah. They were teaching him how to speak Fulfulde when he said he wanted to learn, the mother and daughter kept laughing at the way he used his British-Arabian accent to pronounce the words.

When she came out of her small room and saw an unfamiliar handsome person who did not look like a Nigerian, she mistakenly dropped the metal cup she was holding which made the two people in the living room laugh out loud.

"Y-you look like those models from a magazine, even more handsome," That was the first thing she uttered when her eyes landed on Zafeer, Hidayah could swear that her heart missed a beat.

"Can't you greet our guest, Hidayah?" Her mother scolded.

"Good afternoon..." She trailed off, not knowing his name.

"Murad," He gave her a genuine smile and adjusted the cufflinks of his coffee-brown kaftan.

"Hamma Murad," She smiled shyly.

"He is your sister's guest, go and bring some refreshments for him," Nafisa spoke, she did as her mother said.

After that, they sat down to entertain the said guest. Hidayah kept telling him more and more about Marwa, even the time when she went to her school and posed as her mother, Zafeer laughed so hard that moment, it sounded so foreign to his ears but at the same time, he felt celestial.

Snapping back to reality, he stood up and made his way out after gifting Hidayah a bundle of one thousand Naira notes like those brothers-in-law or visitors do. The girl was too shy to collect but she did nonetheless, if Marwa finds out one way or the other, she should consider herself dead.

Zafeer was disappointed and furious when he went out, he gave Marwa twenty calls and the careless girl didn't even pick up. That was when he saw a silver car driving towards Marwa's, the moment he saw Marwa looking like a deer caught in a headlight, the anger in him proliferated and he punched his car. His heart burned with the desire to kill the driver of the car even though he couldn't see his face.

"How dare she keep me waiting? Who the hell has that audacity and authority to go out with her?" He silently seethed, his eyes narrowing into slits. He assured himself that he was not jealous because of a mere commoner, she didn't have the superpower to make the Crown Prince Zafeer Ibn Harith Baghdad jealous, or so he thought.

Marwa alighted the car with an apathetic expression, the stubbornness and arrogance in her wouldn't allow her to show him that she was afraid. She silently walked to where he was standing, not knowing that Junaid was following behind. He knew that Zafeer was jealous and angry, the guy hated waiting for someone, and seeing Marwa with another man just gave rise to a new feeling in him.

"I stopped at the --" She didn't get to finish explaining before he cut her off.

"You stopped at the classy restaurant for a quick date with your boyfriend while I was here waiting for you? Seriously Marwa, what the hell is your problem? You could have told me that you wouldn't make it, do you hate me that much and you want me to suffer?" He ranted all in one breath, his deep, angry voice sending shivers down her spine, she had fallen in love with that unique voice since the first day she met him.